


Everyone's favorite frocked fantasy

by luna65



Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: 1974, Angst and Humor, Depression, F/M, Gen, Major Illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-09-30 23:22:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17233091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luna65/pseuds/luna65
Summary: Clothes make the man...and help create a legend.(aka: Brian tries to be a model and hilarity ensues.)





	Everyone's favorite frocked fantasy

**Author's Note:**

> Although this is based on actual events and such I'm a bit guilty of compressing the timeline, I think (among other things). But I will never tire of all of the interesting things Queen did over the years for publicity's sake.

She is there every day, constant and pining and pale. He believes - in his wan and depleted state, the entire world fading in and out like a dream - that she is willing him to live with her entire body, the anxiety and the affection rolls off her in waves.

Brian has been quarantined, but certain others are allowed to visit after the proper inoculations were administered: the band, his parents, and his patient love.

 _She is my love_ , he might have thought, might have said, but the lie is thick in his mouth. And he barely has the energy to do anything, much less speak. But the phrase keeps rolling through his mind, the words freighted with a heavy ambivalence as to their ultimate designation.

He keeps his eyes shut as long as he can. There is another world beyond the one his eyes can see, and he grasps at it weakly, with trembling fingers, but he fears that it will all be lost to him...the desire, the dream, the drive which had delivered him to this point, only to be rescinded and leave him stranded once more.

And then he might open his eyes and see her there: reading, knitting, correcting assignments as per the duties of her first posting, and thus be comforted by that constancy.

_It wouldn’t matter, she’d follow you into a dung heap if you told her it was your destiny._

Such is the greater power of belief. He might well have been an imaginary creature if not for her belief in him, if not for her unerring support of him.

 _Be grateful_ , his mother would say. _Be grateful for every breath in every day._

And he was _trying_ , even as that other world was fading bit by precious bit and he felt half-unreal as he moved between spectral memories and antiseptic banality.

 

Once he was pronounced in the clear regarding the use of his arm, Brian had been inundated with books and puzzles, and his parents had even brought in a small set of stereoscopic photographs and the viewer which he and his dad had crafted many summers ago.

“These were all we could afford, dear,” his mother told him, “but I know they’ll amuse you for a while.”

The guys had brought him a record player and his favorite albums, but the mere thought of music was exhausting at this point. He barely had the strength to eat or to drag himself to the toilet once the catheter had been removed, so his mind drifted along in a hazy wilderness of worry, regret, longing and alienation.

But his second-best girl, bless her, one day decided she’d had enough of all this. She knew he was depressed and she was the sort who preferred to solve problems rather than fret about them.

“Pat was meaning to bring you this, but she’s not allowed in ‘cause she hasn’t had the jab,” Chrissy explained upon appearing for her daily visit, placing a large leather-bound book on his bed with a thump.

He opened it to the first page, which bore Freddie’s original artwork for their logo. Another turn of the page revealed that it was the scrapbook which Pat and Sue Johnstone had been keeping for them, containing every press clipping they could lay their hands on.

“Hmm,” he murmured in his particular way, a sound she had been long-accustomed to hearing during their sojourns in the Imperial College library, side-by-side making studious industry rather than idle romance. “I dunno, is it wholly awful?”

“Not entirely,” she said, her voice somehow mockingly cheerful.

“Hmm,” he said again as he turned the pages.

“And then there’s this.” She dumped an entire string shopping bag-worth of letters and parcels in his lap.

“What?!” His wondering surprise was as strong as he could muster.

“Fan mail, some of it for all of you, but some of it just for you. I think it’s very sweet.”

“Wow, really?” He managed a smile even as it seemed his entire body hurt to fashion such an expression.

“Really and truly, Bri. See who misses you, then? Not _just_ us - not anymore.”

She helped him open the packages addressed to him, and they each laughed when most of them revealed a penguin, and fairly soon an entire waddle of penguins resided on the bed with him. He read the letters and cards included with the gifts and marveled at the sheer kindness of humanity.

 _GET WELL SOON!_ they all read, and in turn he smiled at how many people seemed to care.

“They don’t think I’m finished then?” he asked.

“Of course not!” Chrissy exclaimed, with a shake of her long hair. “Why in the world would anyone think that?!”

“Wouldn’t blame anyone for the assumption,” he said, holding a tiny stuffed penguin dressed in a jaunty red scarf and hat. He smiled at it, his natural affection for his fellow creatures granting him just the slightest bit of optimism.

“ _No one_ is giving up on you. Freddie even rang me the other day and said: ‘Make certain you’re keeping his spirits up, dearie, we’re barely holding it together without him!’”

“He could have told me that himself!” He meant to be emphatic but it came out as sort of a croak.

She laughed as if to say _oh you dear addled thing_. “You lot have **never** been able to compliment each other directly, so why start now?”

Brian sighed. “Yes I s’pose you’re right, as usual.”

She leaned down, brushing aside his fringe and kissing his forehead. “Won’t say _I told you so_ , but it is rather nice when you’re not too stubborn.”

He gave her a light kiss on the lips. “Shan’t last long, I suspect.”

 

Brian didn’t consider himself much of a newspaper reader as for years his academic load meant he had little time for anything other than textbooks, professional journals, and research - both his own and that of others. But his father read _The Telegraph_ and so when a ward nurse stopped by his room and produced a copy of the new issue of _The Daily Telegraph Magazine_ for him to autograph, his first thoughts were as follows.

_Why didn’t they put Fred on the cover?!_  
_Oh lord, what is **he** going to think of such a weird picture?_

He was happy to oblige her and anyone else in these requests. But then his doctor got wind of the excitement and admonished the lot of them to leave his patient in peace. Chrissy came in during the last hour of visitation and she smirked at him as she drew a chair to his bedside and produced her own newly-purchased copy of the publication.

“So I see they finally got ‘round to running that fashion bit, then.”

He grimaced. “Yes. I mean, it’s good for the band, of course, particularly since we can’t do much else at the moment for promotion. But on the other hand we thought they would print it ages ago! S’pose they couldn’t because of the clothes?”

“Dead-on, sir - those are summer frocks, all,” she noted. 

“Doesn’t Fred look a wonder, though? Really wish they’d put him on the cover.”

“That tunic suits him down to the ground, I must say.”

“So now you see what they had me doing. Some model, eh?”

She laughed, covering her mouth briefly. “I’m sorry, luv, but oh what a giggle we had over this in the Teachers’ Lounge this afternoon!”

Brian rolled his eyes. “I can only imagine.”

“To be fair, I started it. I believe I said, ‘I think Zandra must have pulled down her velvet curtains to make that frock!’ But Jeannie said you looked much taller than she thought you were.”

“That’s because I do - they had me stand on a box. And an hour being made up, then they use the one where I’m looking down at an angle and I could be anybody.”

“Not with that hair you couldn’t,” she quipped and he stuck his tongue out at her. “But where’s Deaky?”

Brian flipped through the feature. “Hmm, I guess they didn’t use any he was in. But he was there, of course, we all were; but they set up different groupings - they’d shoot a roll and then pose us differently and do it again. The lights were _punishing_ , hotter than stage lights, even.”

“And who are those chaps?” she asked, pointing at the photo featuring the two models seeming to climb up into the back of a loading dock while a publicity poster of the band looked on from the all-white tableau of the gatefold image for _Queen II_.

“Well there’s Harris on top of those cases, but you can hardly tell,” Brian replied, pointing to the right.

Chrissy peered at the figure. “I reckon you _still_ can’t!”

“The other guy, I’ve no clue. Maybe he works at Trident now.”

“So explain yourself, May - did they mean you to loom like a vulture the whole time?”

“I didn’t tell you ‘bout it back then because it was too embarrassing, but yeah. At first they had me stand there with my arms extended, and then they decided that was too much like what they had Freddie do, so the photographer said something ‘bout ‘Death and the maidens’ and I was ready to take offense but Fred hissed at me from the background and so I went along with it.”

“You couldn’t be menacing if you tried!”

“I quite agree but it was strange, I started to think of meself as a dark wizard of sorts. But it looks rather silly, doesn’t it? My pose, I mean, not the frock. Zandra’s so talented.”

“Hmm, I s’pose I can see that, compelling all yon fair maidens to listen to your enchanted music and such. But I maintain _no one_ could be frightened of you, that’s what makes it so hilarious!”

“Yes yes, duly noted, miss. I think it would have been nicer if they’d been wearing the same type of clothes as we are. You know, something flowing and romantic.”

“It’s just not done, my good man. I think the designers are going mad for Jazz Age frocks right now.”

“Hmm. Well, I can only imagine what Dad is going to have to say ‘bout it.”

“I thought we quite explained to him that one must sometimes do odd things when one is a pop star.”

“Yes, but when one’s only son is on the cover of a magazine which isn’t even about pop stars looking like a velvet-clad vampire or something, then he’s apt to feel rather injured, as if I haven’t heard the _your mother and I raised you to reach the highest aspirations of which you are capable_ speech numerous times already.”

“Oh you never know, Bri. Besides, I’d be more afraid of what **my** dad is going to say when he sees it.”

Brian chuckled. “Oh, you mean: _eh Chris, you sure that boyfriend of yours ain’t a lavender one_?”

Chrissy rolled her eyes. “Something like that. And then I have to explain to him **again** that it’s just fashion and someday we’ll give him plenty of grandchildren.”

The mention of the expectant future gave him pause, though he suppressed his reaction. _Let me get out of this bed first, please._

 

Saturday brought a gaggle of bandmates to his sickbed. Freddie posed dramatically in the doorway, as if spying Brian quite by chance, Roger and John looking over his shoulders with equally comedic expressions.

“Oh fellahs, look - it’s Brian May, everyone’s favorite frocked fantasy!”

They tumbled inside, raucous with laughter and Brian grinned. 

_They must still want me, to come all the way down here to take the piss._

“Freddie **you** should have been on the cover for certain.”

“Well yes darling, I **should** , but this is far more amusing, you must agree.”

“Well Pat and Sue think you’re sexy, but everyone else was _crying_ , I tell ya,” Roger assured him.

“Wouldn’t expect anything less, naturally. Did Harris spot himself?”

“Reckons he might pull a few from his new status as a model, one suspects,” John cracked and they all chuckled.

“I’m thrilled Zandra will get some notice out of it,” Freddie said.

“But she’s rather more famous than we are,” Roger observed, “so it’s not as if she needs it!”

“Do you think she’d be willing to make another one for me?” Brian asked. “I want one with a bit more color.”

“Well we certainly don’t have the money for it now, do we?” Freddie replied. “But she’s a darling, I well imagine it wouldn’t be any trouble at all. She’s got all your measurements!”

“You’ve got two already!” John declared.

“Deaks, when you find a piece that works, you can **never** have enough of it,” Roger told him, and John shrugged and grinned, the lone peahen in a band of peacocks.

“Has Chrissy seen it yet?” Roger asked.

“Oh yes, they had quite a laugh at her school over it, she said.”

“I actually think that tunic looks a treat on you, makes you look rather decadent, but I wish they would have let you wear your necklace as well, it completes the look,” Freddie observed.

“What I want to know is,” Brian said to Roger, “what on earth is your face doing in this one?”

“They told me to look at the girls like they were groupies! So I did, more or less.”

“I bet you couldn’t even see that girl!”

Roger shrugged, chagrined. “Nah, not really.”

They all laughed so hard Brian had to plead with the others to stop because his body still ached in places he didn’t think was possible.

 

 

 _You looked like an angel up there_ , she told him, the memory was a dear one. And he had smiled at the comment, he knew a costume could have a particular power, to create admiration from nothing more than a heroic pose under a spotlight, the air gauzy with smoke and everything shining: satiny surfaces, skin dewy with sweat, hair gleaming in the intense illumination. He became something else, a fantasy perhaps, but also an exaggeration of himself - armed with a hand-built magical device, producing a sound which vibrated within them to make all others stop, make them stare enthralled to behold the glorious noise these four were creating.

He looked at himself in the white satin tunic, his own piece of bespoke majesty, his heavy ringlets hanging to his shoulders, and he was learning to see what they did, as he applied his makeup and willed himself to become larger than life for all those awaiting their triumphant entrance.

On this momentous night he shivered in the knowledge that he had already survived so much, and yet they were barely making their mark upon the world. Nowhere to go but to claw their way up, even as this had been their dearest dream, to sell out this hallowed venue. They knew now that the world was so much bigger, and there were greater prizes to be won.

But didn’t they all look splendid, and especially Freddie who was the _true_ angel, Brian believed. A being wholly divine, a whirling dervish of white satin and chainmail and raven-haired allure.

“It’s not about how you _look_ ,” Freddie had said when he donned the ivory silk top which he had pulled off the rack in Zandra's attic studio, twirling with arms extended and posing in front of a nearby mirror. But oh, didn’t he look _amazing_ in it. “It’s about how you _feel_ , and I feel that I am as I should be.”

A creature no one could take their eyes off of. Bigger than life and twice as loud.

“We **have** to do this, Bri,” he insisted as they continued to look through Zandra's inventory. “We have to look like how we feel inside.”

“And how do we feel inside?” Brian asked, as he pulled out a black velvet cape shirt with a lace collar and black satin ribbon applique. He held it up for Freddie’s perusal, the other nodded approvingly.

“Like we rule the world, darling, of course!”

Of course. He looked at himself one last time, one last deep breath before diving into the unique circumstance of a performance.

 _Let’s get on with it then._ In his white satin armour he was ready for anything. And everything.


End file.
